Alvi Silkchair

It recalls images of abandoned looms, textile works left in progress stretched along threads that weave across the center of a simple wooden frame.

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Alvi Silkchair detail

The Silkchair by Alvi Design features a series of durable blue strings tied to solid oak legs, feet and back forming a simple wrapping line around the edges.

Environmental friendly seating furniture with silk thread tightened around a bearing oak frame. The transparent expression is in focus, which creates new forms and brings forth a perception of weightlessness, while the light produces new shadow plays from the thread works of the alvi silkchair.”

Seated in woven chair

As tension is applied, this slack strands band together to form serious supports, able to hold up a person seated along them while providing the most minimalist kind of cushion for both seats and backs you could imagine.

As complex as it looks, an idea like this is actually doable as a DIY project, so long as you’re patient. Treat a salvaged chair frame like a loom, drilling holes around its perimeter edges and weaving strings through them to either side.

Alvi Silkchair weaving

Alvidesign was founded in 2007 by Åsa Kärner, when the alvihanger for clothes, bags and towels, as the first product was launched in Sweden.

“My ambition is to design furniture and products, using environmentally friendly materials with long durability, a focus on sustainable production methods and humane working conditions. These are the criteria I use as a platform for my design and production.”

Alvi Silkchair back

“I studied at Nyckelviksskolan in Stockholm 2006-2007 and I am now doing my Bachelors´ Degree at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Design in Copenhagen with furniture design and interior architecture as my main subjects. During my education I put a lot of effort in broadening my knowledge in ecological and sustainable design and production. In my design my aim is to in a playful way combine and push the limits between modern, functional design, art and handicraft from different cultures.”